Little Known Black History Fact: Otis G. Clark

On May 31, 1921, Otis G. Clark was 18 years old. He was also living in the middle of one of the deadliest, racially-motivated events in American history: The Tulsa Race Riots. That night in May, Clark, a Greenwood, Oklahoma native, escaped flying bullets and angry white mobs, only to witness his family home burn down (1 of 1,200 homes that night).

Although the people of Tulsa and surrounding areas kept silent about the details of the race riot for decades, stories of what happened that night eventually made their way to headlines. Rumors spread to the local authorities that a black man touched a white female elevator operator inappropriately. Anyone was given deputy rights and white mobs looked for street justice in the form of a small war on blacks in Greenwood.